The Birth of Empire

DeWitt Clinton and the American Experience, 1769-1828

Evan Cornog

DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828) was one of the nation's strongest political leaders in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, serving as mayor of New York City, governor of the state, and narrowly losing the Presidential campaign of 1812 to James Madison. Patrician in his sentiments, Clinton nevertheless invented new forms of party politics. His greatest achievement, the Erie Canal, hastened the economic expansion of the country, altered the political geography of the nation, set an example for activist government, and decisively secured New York City's position as America's first and foremost metropolis. While mayor, Clinton's role in founding the city's public school system was only the most significant of his many contributions to learning. An amateur scientist of international renown, he wrote essays on geology, botany, entomology, archaeology, anthropology, and ichthyology. This book relates in vivid detail the biography of one of the most important--and most interesting--political figures in US history.

The Birth of Empire

DeWitt Clinton and the American Experience, 1769-1828

Evan Cornog

Description

DeWitt Clinton (1769-1828) dominated the politics of New York State during the first quarter of the nineteenth century, serving as mayor of New York City and then governor of the state. At the same time, he was influential on the national scene, running for president in 1812 and only narrowly losing to James Madison. Although patrician in his sentiments, Clinton nevertheless developed new forms of party politics, including the spoils system. He was an early champion of the nomination of candidates by convention rather than legislative caucus, and as a United States Senator contributed the draft language for the Twelfth Amendment, which embedded party politics in the fabric of the Constitution.

Clinton's greatest achievement was the Erie Canal, the establishment and implementation of which he championed as early as 1810. Construction of the canal began in 1817, and even before it was completed, eight years later, it had brought profound changes--economic, cultural, and social--to the state and the nation. As Evan Cornog illustrates in his detailed and compelling narrative, the Erie Canal hastened the economic expansion of the country, altered its political geography, set an example for activist government, and decisively secured New York City's position as America's foremost metropolis. It was a project unlike anything the Empire State--or the United States--had seen before, and was only the most successful of Clinton's many efforts to implement his view that government should play an active role in the economic and intellectual development of American society.

The Birth of Empire chronicles not only the life of an important political leader but the accomplishments that underlay his success. As mayor of New York City, for example, Clinton was instrumental in the founding of the public-school system. He sponsored countless measures to promote cultural enrichment as well as educational opportunities for New Yorkers, and helped to establish and lead such institutions as the New-York Historical Society, the American Academy of the Arts, and the Literary and Philosophical Society. An amateur scientist of some renown, Clinton also wrote essays on geology, botany, entomology, archaeology, anthropology, and ichthyology.

As shown here, Clinton's career was marked by frequent attempts to integrate his cultural and scientific interests into his identity as a politician, thus projecting the image of a man of wide learning and broad vision, a scholar-statesman of the new republic. Ironically, the political innovations which Clinton set in motion--the refinement of patronage and the spoils system, appeals to immigrant voters, and the professionalization of politics--were precisely what led to the extinction of the scholar-statesman's natural habitat. However visionary, the latter-day philosopher-king would eventually have no place in the modern world. DeWitt Clinton was born into the aristocratic culture of the eighteenth century, yet his achievements and ideas crucially influenced (in ways he did not always anticipate) the growth of the mass society of the nineteenth century.

With this book, Cornog engagingly guides readers through the colorful maze of early nineteenth-century New York politics and society, illustrating both the depth of achievement and breadth of influence of one of its most important leaders. Those who wish to understand the development of American politics, the flowering of a distinctly American cultural life, the progress of the market revolution, and the growth of America's largest city will find many valuable insights in The Birth of Empire.

The Birth of Empire

DeWitt Clinton and the American Experience, 1769-1828

Evan Cornog

Table of Contents

Introduction: Gentlemen of New York1. Political Apprentice2. Political Journeyman3. Clintonians and Burrites4. Mayor Clinton5. Clintonian Culture6. Clintonians and Quids7. New York and the Nation8. Launching the Canal9. Clintonian Intellect10. The Governor11. Resurrection12. The Canal and Its Consequences13. End of a Career

The Birth of Empire

DeWitt Clinton and the American Experience, 1769-1828

Evan Cornog

Author Information

Evan Cornog was educated at Harvard and Columbia, and has taught American history at Columbia, LaGuardia Community College (CUNY), and Lafayette College. He also worked as Press Secretary for former Mayor Edward I. Koch of New York City. Currently, he is Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University.

The Birth of Empire

DeWitt Clinton and the American Experience, 1769-1828

Evan Cornog

Reviews and Awards

Winner of the New York State Historical Association's 1997 Dixon Ryan Fox Manuscript Prize

"...Cornog offers unforgettable stories for general readers and a wealth of information and insight about New York politics and history."--Gazette, Schenectady, NY

"...Evan Cornog's biography of DeWitt Clinton is...welcome, filling a noticeable gap in the literature while portraying the individual who transformed New York into the Empire State....Cornog is to be congratulated for writing the definitive study of DeWitt Clinton. It should stand the test of time."--Journal of the Early Republic

"[Cornog] creates a forceful and colorful portrait of his vital and powerful subject....Rather like our Bill Clinton, his DeWitt Clinton recurrently finds in defeat the seeds of his next triumph, but he also invariably squanders victory by indulging in uncompromising fantasies of control and revenge. This biographical approach makes for a lucid and largely true story that lingers on the personal and contingent."--Alan Taylor, The New Republic

"In Cornog's telling, the life and times of DeWitt Clinton make a fascinating guide to the complex interaction of personality, popularity, and policy in our infant republic."--The New Yorker

"Evan Cornog served brilliantly as press secretary in my administration. Now as a writer and biographer, he is brilliant once again in telling the story of one of the great politicians of the state and city of New York. Cornog's wonderful Birth of Empire not only gives the history of DeWitt Clinton, for twelve years the City's mayor and twice the State's governor, but also paints a marvelous picture of early 19th-century Manhattan. Active sponsor of the Erie Canal, founder of the New-York Historical Society, and devoted supporter of the cultural and industrial growth of city and state, DeWitt Clinton comes alive in this story of the origins of the greatest city in the world."--Edward I. Koch, Mayor of New York City, 1978 to 1989

"Concurrent with the restoration of the Erie Canal, author Evan Cornog gives us a fascinating caravansary of the creation of the canal by its major proponent, Governor DeWitt Clinton. This great work, engineered and excavated by immigrants, opened the State of New York and the West to a host of immigration that transformed this state from an aristocracy to the democracy we now know as the Empire State. Cornog also gives us a vivid and insightful depiction of the Governor who was both a creator and a casualty of that transformation. The portraits of Clinton and his contemporaries; of their colloquies, comments, and anecdotes in the ebb tide of regency; and of the rise of the new republic make this book an invaluable companion on any trip up the Erie. What better escort could we have than Cornog's Governor Clinton--who was courageous and clumsy in politics, and charming and cantankerous, like so many other governors I can recall."--Hugh L. Carey, Governor of New York State, 1975 to 1983

"As mayor, governor, and senator, and as father of the Erie Canal and a dozen other major institutions and initiatives, DeWitt Clinton is arguably the most important person ever to lead the Empire City and the Empire State. His is a grand story, and in Evan Cornog he has found a grand biographer."--Kenneth T. Jackson, Columbia University

"No political leader loomed larger in New York during the first quarter of the 19th century than DeWitt Clinton, and none had a more ambitious vision of the metropolitan cultural and economic possibilities of the city, nor did any do more to realize them. The story of this 18th-century man who did so much to make 19th-century New York has been deeply researched and engagingly told by Evan Cornog."--Thomas Bender, Professor of History, New York University